1951 Unknown Give Labour security in the House to give you security in the Home

to 1950s posters. As Sheena points at these posters especially from a contemporary viewpoint, and I think were utilitarian in production and style,50 in in terms of Scholz's view of political poster design, an age where great excess wasn’t available 50 Sheena Calvert, Interview by Amir they would also be faulted, they don’t use harmonious or appropriate, it speaks of humility in their Saidani, 2020 <https://rca.cloud. colour combinations, they aren’t necessarily the most ideas and their message. Another element of panopto.eu/Panopto/ Pages/Viewer. legible pieces either, the design and text don’t go 1950 in which we discussed and that I hadn’t aspx?id=c27b5d174115-4a8a-95c8- together; because the design itself relies heavily on the considered in my analysis of the posters, is abed00a32236>. text, which is a brush style typeface and there is no the context of design trends, but in a very benign photography or illustration, you are requiring the text way, I analysed Michael Middleton’s ‘Soldiers of Lead’ to do a lot of work, and it’s not as dynamic as the typeas a gold standard for Labour design, but this would heavy letterpress posters that would have existed in have been a very contemporary bit of advice, the the early 1900s. But as Sheena and I discussed, there utilisation of Gill; which would have been a fairly new is an element of modernity that I’ve overlooked, in a font, exists in the same way in which we as designers similar way to Gill Sans being the trendy typeface of work now, keeping up with the up-to-date font choices, the 40s, as so brush script came to its zenith in the and utilising it in work. So it’s easy to acknowledge 50s,51 and as design pieces, they may not speak that they followed Scholz's rules in terms of using a to me, but as the language of 1945 and 1950 ‘modern art style’, and this element of ‘trendy design’ spoke of admiration, 1951 uses its graphic style doesn’t end there, the use of Photography comes into to speak a more informal language, away from this as well, being the first to use photography in their the rigid governmental Gill Sans, and more into posters, leaving behind the traditional illustrated style. a trusting space. Another design point is a comment We can look at 1950 and say, although the designs on the informal nature of design, although people like were all anonymous in terms of who produced them, Middleton spent time trying to drill an aesthetic into there is an interesting idea of play, being contemporary the party, that charm of a designer on one particular within that experimentation. We see the Conservatives day choosing a brush font is what makes these designs as controlled, and these posters speak to how Labour so nuanced, you can have a rigid design language, but may have been viewed, as ‘DIY’ but innovative in the it’s about how a particular designer is trying to make way they used their limitations. In the same way, as that message heard, and so although I think these 1945, aspiration and reflection is an important theme, posters are overly oppressive and don’t share the people were possibly brought in because they were enthusiasm of the past, there is an interesting design inspired, they could also see themselves in that question to be had in, how important are rigid design aspiration and innovation. rules, what about just talking to people simply, dealing with the parameters and the limitations that may 1951 is where the aesthetic shifted for me, it moves surround you, is that the best way to design? away from these very cliched ideas of World War Two propaganda, and moves into a more nuanced world By 1955 we see a complete change in the aesthetic of poster design. I’m very harsh in my analysis of 1951, from where we start in 1945, as a piece of design the

51 Sheena Calvert, Interview by Amir Saidani, 2020 <https://rca.cloud. panopto.eu/Panopto/ Pages/Viewer. aspx?id=c27b5d174115-4a8a-95c8abed00a32236>.